Historic Landscapes: Claremont's Heritage Trees and Yards

People fall in love with old Claremont houses in the summer, and a good deal of what they are actually falling in love with is the shade.

The canopy over an established street is not decoration. It is climate control, it is the reason the block feels the way it does, and on many properties it is older than the current owner and will outlast the next one. Yet in nearly every renovation conversation, the landscape is the last thing discussed and the first thing damaged.

This piece is an argument for treating the yard as part of the historic property, because it is.

The setting is part of the building

Preservation thinking has a useful word: SETTING. A building does not exist as an object floating in space. It sits in a relationship to the street, to a front yard depth, to a walkway, to planting, to a driveway that runs down one side rather than punching through the middle.

Old Claremont houses were designed with that relationship in mind. Deep front setbacks, porches that address the sidewalk, and planting that was expected to mature and eventually shelter the house.

Which means that flattening the front yard for parking, or removing a mature tree that shaded the west elevation, changes the property in ways that go beyond aesthetics. It changes how the house performs.

Trees are regulated, and you must ask before you cut

Here is the sentence that saves people money: assume you need permission before removing a mature tree, and confirm with the City of Claremont.

Many cities regulate the removal of trees above a certain size, trees of particular species, and trees in the public right of way, and they attach real consequences to removal without approval. Whether a specific tree on a specific parcel is protected, what the process is, and what replacement obligations might apply are questions only the City can answer.

Note also that the strip between the sidewalk and the curb is frequently NOT the homeowner's to manage unilaterally, even though the homeowner mows it. Ask.

And if the property carries any historic designation or falls within a designated area, landscape and site features may fall inside the review process too. That takes you back to how homes qualify for landmark status, and to the same instruction: confirm the parcel status first.

How mature trees actually get killed

Rarely by a chainsaw. Usually by a renovation, and usually slowly enough that nobody connects the cause to the effect.

• Root zone compaction. Heavy equipment parked under the canopy during construction compresses soil and suffocates roots. The tree may not show it for years.
• Grade changes. Adding soil over a root zone, or cutting into it for a patio or a new driveway, is a common killer.
• Trenching. Utility, irrigation, sewer or drainage trenches cut straight through structural roots. One trench in the wrong arc can destabilize a large tree.
• Watering changes. A mature tree that has lived off a lawn irrigation regime for decades and then loses it when the lawn is removed can decline sharply. So can one that gets drowned by a new drip system on a schedule designed for shrubs.
• Bad pruning. Topping a mature tree damages it structurally and permanently.

The protection is straightforward and costs almost nothing compared with the loss: fence the root zone before work begins, keep equipment and material storage outside it, route trenches around rather than through, and get an arborist involved BEFORE the excavator arrives rather than after the tree starts declining.

Reading the original landscape

Old yards often retain structure that people no longer recognize as intentional.

Look for a walkway alignment that predates the current driveway. Low walls, steps or piers in materials that match the house. A planting bed that follows the porch line. Fruit trees in a back yard grid, a remnant of the era when nearly every lot around here had some. Original irrigation elements. Clothesline posts. A garage that sits where a garage sat because that is where the driveway went.

These are the same kind of evidence you would look for indoors, and they date the property just as well. The research approach in tracing a home's history works outdoors too: aerial photographs across decades will show you the yard's evolution better than any other source.

Modernizing the yard without erasing it

You do not have to keep a lawn you do not want. Water reality alone has moved most owners past that, and a period appropriate yard was never a golf green anyway.

The approach that works is the same one that works inside the house: keep the STRUCTURE, change the CONTENT. Keep the walkway alignment and the front yard depth, keep the mature canopy, keep the walls and steps if they are original, and then replant underneath with whatever suits current conditions. The bones stay legible; the plant palette adapts.

What damages a property is the opposite move: removing the structure, paving the front, taking out the tree, and then adding decorative planting in place of the thing that actually made the setting.

The maintenance case

Mature trees also do real work for the building. Shade on a west wall reduces heat load on a house that was designed around exactly that. And the same canopy has a companion obligation: gutters fill with leaf litter, and gutters that overflow send water down the wall and into the foundation area, which is where the trouble described in raised floors and foundations begins.

Big trees near an old house are an asset with a chore attached. Do the chore.

Before you touch anything

Call the City about tree regulations and about the parcel's status. Get an arborist to look at anything mature before a project starts. Photograph the yard as it is. Then plan.

The house will be here after all of us. With any luck, so will the trees.

More across the cluster at the historic homes hub. Anthony Grynchal has been licensed in California since November 2009.